Nokia Narcolepsy

Yesterday, Thursday, was the first real totally down day I've had in this month that, I fear, is going to be full of them. Especially if the pattern of technological difficulties persists. What am I talking about? Let me splain.

I got up and went to meet Mr. Lee for conversation this morning, (Friday). It was 7:30 and I was already at his office waiting for him. I went early because yesterday, (Thursday), there was no wifi at the kost where I'm living. It is supposed to be fixed today but it's noon and still no wifi. So I figured I'd go early, check my emails and such at Mr. Lee's office because I know he has dependable wifi there. I got onto my email to find a message from 15 hours earlier that was from Matthew, the guy I'm going to be working with full time as soon as we can fill up my schedule. The message read, “I tried to call you all day today.” I checked my phone. No messages, no missed calls. On Wednesday the internet was shakey at my kost and for some reason my telephone automatically went into the thoroughly useless mode that is euphemistically labelled “emergency calls only” mode. Mr. Lee had had that happen to him before as well so he showed me how to remove the flashy yellow protective cover from my trusty Nokia, then remove the battery, wait a few minutes and put it back in. Voila! The phone worked again.

The emergency calls only mode disables everything. I mean ERRRverything! No calls in or out, no texts in or out and no record of any missed calls or messages. And there is no beep, buzz, song or vibration to let you know the phone has slipped into this mode and become an expensive paperweight, it just happens because some numbskull wanted to add another feature for the sake of adding another feature. The way you find out this has happened is you try to send a text message or make a phone call and get the thoroughly inaccurate message, “Emergency calls only.” This feature has helped exactly NObody but it has pissed off thousands. Dare I say millions? This is what happens when people who have no idea about people, and what we do, design electronics.

So I try to make a phone call and sure enough, “Emergency calls only.” So I dismantle my not as trusty as I thought Nokia, take out the battery, wait a few minutes, then put it back in. Voila, it works again. So I call up Bluebird, the taxi company, because I'm going to need a taxi after I finish chatting with Mr. Lee at about 9:10. It works. I get Bluebird. While I am dialling and waiting I try to bring up on my laptop the file in which I have stored the address of Mr. Lee's office so as to tell the cab company where to come and get me. I put all this stuff on my computer for those times when my phone doesn't work, or is stolen. But it won't come up. I clicked on it about 20 times and got nothing. So I'm struggling to explain, in English, to the dispatch at Bluebird where to come and when and suddenly I hear a beep. “Hello? Hello? Hello? Bluebird?” Either they hung up on me or the call was dropped by my decreasingly trusty Nokia.

I send an email message to Matthew telling him that there was no wifi at my place yesterday and so my email wasn't available and my phone was in yellow brick mode. Then Mr. Lee comes and I go to his office. He is pretty sure the same thing has happened to him a few times. But we're both perplexed about why the lack of wifi would knock out a phone. Thing is when I was staying at Matthew and Abbey's place, (different Matthew), there was no wifi there either and my Samsung Galaxy switched into the exact same mode. I got the “emergency calls only message” from that phone a few times. Why the frig would wifi have anything to do with phones? Matthew sends me a reply saying pretty much exactly that. There should be no connection, (phrasing), and it makes no sense at all. I agree that it makes no sense but am at a loss as to what I can do short of building my own repeater tower near every place I live. While I was at Matt and Abbey's I missed out on a client and almost missed out on Mr. Lee. I was hoping this didn't happen again.

I got a call from Matthew at the very beginning of the chat with Mr. Lee so he made it quick and just told me that another appointment I had planned on had cancelled. But after I said goodbye to Mr. Lee I called Matthew back and my worst fears were confirmed. There was a soldier looking for some English instruction. This would have been I think 6 hours a week for me. A HUGE chunk of full time hours! Not to mention a tidy chunk of money every week. Matthew could not reach me so he gave the contract to another teacher.

So I go home, change clothes and get the phone number of the kost where I'm staying. I find an internet cafe, (because, as yet there is no wifi at my place), and email the number of the kost to Matthew for a situation in the future when my phone automatically goes into a technological coma again. I then do a search on the glacially slow internet at the cafe to see if I am the only person in existence having this problem. It turns out that there are pages and pages of conversation threads about the same thing. I find lots and lots of fixes for the problem, (i.e. Take the battery out and put it back in again), but not a single piece of advice on how to disable whatever setting there may be that leads to this Nokia narcolepsy. I STILL don't know what to do about that. If anyone who is reading this has the solution, PLEASE let me in on it. I have looked at every single setting I can find and nothing looks like it would do anything to help. Of course it might be the same as the volume. When I first got this phone I made a call or two and could not hear the person on the other end. Jakarta is a cacophony of motors, horns, voices, and such at the best of times. Even when you go inside it can still be noisy. So I found a couple of settings on the phone. One was loudness. I put a check mark beside that. The other I found by accident by pushing the hang-up button once too often a volume meter comes up so I maxed it. The next call I got was no different in voice volume but the ring was deafeningly loud! I did the google thing again and found that if you press the utility button to the right DURING A CALL the volume will go up. Left for down. Again, who the hell designs these things? It's a PHONE. Hearing is half the reason you bought it! Why oh WHY make the customer hire a private investigator to find out how to get that function? Stop the insanity!!!

So here I sit with less than half the weekly hours I would have had if EITHER internet or phone had been working yesterday. And still no dependable strategy for keeping the exact same thing from happening tomorrow. This is Jakarta so far for me. I'm in technological Hell but these ARE some pretty entertaining blog posts I guess. If I could ever get to my blog.

Oh now THERE'S another story. It was the internet here. You see before it went completely out it showed up on my computer, (again with the mislabelling) as “limited.” While the wifi is “limited” I get NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. But I go to sites and get the “unable to access this site” or whatever it is. Then my browser memory remembers that and goes straight to that even if the wifi is on again. So I have to clean my cache and retype all my websites and passwords every time I want to check if the internet is fixed.

Now here's the weird part: Before the internet went completely out I could do anything except view my blog. I could go to the dashboard, write, edit, post, update, I just could not SEE the actual site. I went to Mr. Lee's office and viewed it fine. I went to Wall Street and viewed it fine from another computer. I thought it was my computer or the website but it was neither. It was just a weak internet signal. So I guess that's the first thing to go. My blog. So when, (if), the wifi gets fixed today, there's no guarantee I'll be able to post this. I might have to wait till I go to a place with good wifi.

Still having fun here though. Sigh...

Addendum: Wifi is working at my kost again. So I posted and then went to view this post. BZZZZZZT! Still got half assed wifi. The main reason I MOVED here was the wifi. Again, sigh...